Michelangelo composed his first verses in the early 16th century. His poems were, for the most part, a private exercise, an escape. He preferred the sonnet and the madrigal to other forms. The poem “Oh night, oh sweet time, though dark” was written while painting The last judgement (1535-1541): praise to the night, which, like death, is, in a religious sense, not an end but a new beginning.